Vitorin: found to work no better than lower priced Zocor ... $3 a pill compared with 3 cents a pill

Tuesday, January 29, 2008 by CommonDreams.org | Pay No Attention to That Clinical Data or Squandered Tax Payer Dollars for Medicaid Drugs | by Martha Rosenberg

“The American Heart Association is cautioning patients if they stop taking Vytorin abruptly, Schering-Plough and Merck’s stock price will fall.”

That’s how a cartoon showing a news anchor would read after revelations that the American Heart Association–which receives nearly $2 million a year from Vytorin makers Merck and Schering-Plough–and the American College of Cardiology told patients to stay on the drug despite a recent damning study.

Cholesterol drug, Vytorin was hyped as treating “cholesterol from two sources: food and family” but found to work no better than lower priced Zocor in the Enhance clinical study whose results were released in January.
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The state of New York, for example, spent $21 million for Medicaid prescriptions for Vytorin in the last two years–it costs $3 a pill compared with 3 cents a pill for Zocor–prompting New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to also launch an investigation.

“Drug companies are on notice that concealing critical information about life-saving prescription drugs, profiting at the expense of patients’ health, and wasting taxpayer dollars, is simply unacceptable,” said Cuomo. ...